


Dust

by Enchantable



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Drama & Romance, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 19:46:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19341358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: He’s not a criminal. How can he be? His daemon is a ten thousand pound thirteen foot tall African Elephant.She’s as subtle as the circus.





	Dust

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt: His Dark Materials Universe - No matter how emotionally constipated Alex & Michael are, their daemons never have the same issues.

“Where are we going to go?”

“The junkyard.”

“Where we work?”

“Yeah.”

“But I don’t want to do that.”

“We can’t do anything, about it, Cam, Would you stop? Help me load the car.”

Michael can’t believe that within a few days of coming back, Alex has already brought untold chaos into his life. Things were quiet. Now all of a sudden he’s back, his goons are back and Jesse Manes is sniffing around a lot more loudly than he was. Oh and Alex is wounded because the situation doesn’t blow enough. Also Alex doesn’t want to be around him because he’s a criminal and a drunk and once again unworthy to be seen with the great Alex Manes. Heaving a bucket into the back of his truck, he stops when his daemon curves her trunk around him. She’s the only one allowed to comfort him like this. She’s rocked Michael since he was a child without a mother to do it. When she stopped shifting, this was the form she went to more often than not.

He’s not a criminal. How can he be? His daemon is a ten thousand pound thirteen foot tall African Elephant. She’s as subtle as the circus.

“We’ll be fine,” she says and bats his head with her trunk.

“Hey, watch it!” He says in mock outrage.

“Uh oh,” Cam says.

Michael turns as the car pulls up. Alex gets out. He’s dressed in tans, a hoodie tossed over it. Somehow Michael thinks that no-one has hated the camouflage more than Aesina. The snake is peaking out from Alex’s hoodie. Michael hasn’t known Aesina as anything but a black mamba. Alex’s daemon settled young, but then again Alex was forced to find out who he was when he was young as well. Maybe she could change and that was just her preferred form.  It wasn’t like they got much of a chance to talk about it. Aesina wraps easily around the crutch and Alex pauses as she slithers to the ground, lifting the upper part of her body up. Michael lets her examine him before she swings towards Cam.

The fact that their daemons are animals that come from the same place is a cruel joke. It’s a constant reminder of the fact that they cannot seem to figure out how to exist with one another. They hover there and watch as Cam lowers her trunk to allow Aesina to make her way up, where she settles very happily curled like a hat on Cam’s head. It’s fair play given the kiss they had before, but he doesn’t appreciate the lick of heat that the contact sends through him. Neither does Alex, if the hiss of air that escapes him is any indication. But Alex bucks up and turns to face him.

“Where you gonna go?” Alex asks.

“Nevada,” Michael says, picking the nearest desert he can think of.

“Really?” Alex asks and Michael rolls his eyes.

“No,” he says, “there’s still some people who need me here. I’m going to the junkyard—“ he trails off as he hears Cam’s snort and he swears Aesina rolls her eyes, “til I figure something else out.”

“Good,” Alex says.

“Good?” Michael repeats.

Alex looks at him and tries not to focus on the feel of their daemons physical contact. It’s so much easier to focus on that than on the man in front of him, leaning back against the car and looking like he’s itching for a fight. Alex didn’t come here for one. He’s not sure why he came here. No, he knows why he came here. Why Aesina went so easily to Camelai. Why he can’t seem to choke out the words he wants to in front of Michael. Like he’s sorry, like he didn’t mean to make them into this thing. Like at the moment the most he can do is check and make sure Michael’s got somewhere to go and it feels like such a cop out. Alex kicked him out of another place, took another home from him in his father’s—his government’s name.

“I spent the night with some old friends,” he says. It doesn’t take their daemons touching to see the pain flash in Michael’s eyes, “it made me think about—I don’t know,” he says, “who I was. When this started,” he swallows, “before I went to war.”

He’d been whole then, hadn’t he? Or maybe just more whole than he was right now. He’d had two legs at least. There were all sorts of daemons who missed limbs in time with their humans. When he was a kid though Aesina had shifted into a black mamba. She didn’t have limbs to lose and Alex was beyond grateful for that. Aesina was good at war. She was uniquely perfect for it, especially in their line of work. She could get into computer places that Alex couldn’t reach. She had saved his life on multiple occasions. But mostly Alex is glad that she can’t suffer the same loss of limb. He doesn’t feel whole. He doesn’t even feel human as Michael looks at him and shrugs.

“From where I stand, nothing’s changed,” he said.

“Yeah,” Alex scoffs, “including the way you look at me,” Alex says and watches Michael shift defensively, “and that’s a problem for me Guerin,” he says, “because every time you look at me, I’m seventeen again,” he looks over to see Aesina lowering herself, “and I forget the last ten years ever happened. And then you look away and I remember all over again—and it almost kills me! Every time!”

He doesn’t mean for the last words to come out so frantically but Aesina will get there to protect him. He didn’t come here to be protected, he came here to apologize. To try and make things right. It’s Cam who slips her trunk under Aesina as Michael shakes his head, pushing himself up.

“I never look away,” he says, “not really.”

Alex stares at him as he smiles in a way that feels like a knife to his gut. Alex can only stare at him, feeling like his heart is going to beat out of his chest as Michael looks at him with everything he feels written on his face. Alex doesn’t understand how Michael can be so raw. Not after everything. He looks at Aesina but Cam’s already moving away from them, as far as the bond will let them. Before he can think too much about it, he crosses to the trailer. Michael stares at him before realization floods his gaze and he scrambles after him.

They only exist in that trailer for hours.

By the end of it he’s as boneless as people sometimes think snakes are, pressed against Michael who traces whorls all over his body. Alex knows it’s not safe, it just feels so nice. He’s almost disappointed when Aesina slithers across the floor and lifts herself up onto the bed. The part of him that still struggles with the fact that this is where he wants to be almost wants to tell her to go. But she slithers up his spine and dips in front of Michael. It’s a part of his soul but Michael still flattens his hands on Alex’s hips like he can protect him from himself. It’s a sweet but pointless thought.

“Would you stop scaring the boy?” Cam’s voice comes as she opens the window and sticks her trunk inside, “so dramatic. Are you sure you’re capable of hiding?”

“I thought elephants never forgot,” Aesina snaps, lifting herself up to the window but dancing out of the way.

Cam huffs and initially Michael’s kind of willing to say this is roughhousing. But the small window above the bed is purely used by Camelai. Which means it’s completely not an accident when she goes for Aesina and lands instead on Alex. Aesina is just as guilty when she leaps out of the way and somehow winds up on both the arms he’s got on Alex.

Touching another persons daemon is intimate, even more intimate than their sex marathon. It’s like touching their soul. He’s seen Alex but he hasn’t touched Aesina since that night. She’s just as soft as he remembers when she wrapped around his hand in endless coils to try and bind it. Now that same feeling races up his hand and through his entire soul. It’s a feeling that he’s never forgotten, one that he’s never existed without. Not for a moment in the past ten years. All he can do is grip Alex in one arm as his daemon winds around his other. Not blinded by pain, Michael can admire her beauty against his skin as she flicks her black tongue. It’s sexy in that predatory way that Alex pulls off without it being cheesy.

Meanwhile Alex is getting his face mashed by Cam.

He still manages to be the most beautiful thing that Michael’s ever seen. Michael can appreciate that even with the heat of touching this part of Alex’s soul. The rest of Alex is pushed up as Cam pushes her trunk against him over and over again before draping over his shoulder. Alex trembles and the moment she pulls her trunk back, he falls against Michael. Michael tightens his arms around him as their daemons slither and retreat, no longer even pretending this was anything but a ploy to get them to touch again.

“I guess maybe you should stay,” he mumbles into Alex’s neck.

Alex nods.


End file.
